


There's a place in the dark (Hotel in NYC)

by orphan_account



Category: Bandom
Genre: Mentions of Suicide, dreaming/hallucinating, please be careful reading if that could be triggering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 10:18:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3646608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>technically my first fic, though really my first finished one. i have some others going but i did that thing where i chugged along merrily until i hit about 10k and then gave up in despair because my writing is so awful. title is a mesh of twin skeleton's by fall out boy and the sharpest lives by my chem. but you knew that already.</p>
<p>i wrote this in about 3 hours. probably shit and i apologise</p>
    </blockquote>





	There's a place in the dark (Hotel in NYC)

**Author's Note:**

> technically my first fic, though really my first finished one. i have some others going but i did that thing where i chugged along merrily until i hit about 10k and then gave up in despair because my writing is so awful. title is a mesh of twin skeleton's by fall out boy and the sharpest lives by my chem. but you knew that already.
> 
> i wrote this in about 3 hours. probably shit and i apologise

The worst mornings are not the darkest. 

It is 6:00 AM. The sun has been up for half an hour. Every drop of dew glitters, the sky is blue, the birds are singing. It's the kind of morning to throw back your head, breathe deep and think how lucky you are to be alive.

Or fight to keep your heavy sleepless eyelids open and think how easy it would be not to be alive.

Mikey stares the iron railing. There is a spiderweb, hung with dew like pearls or diamonds or some other bullshit cliche to make the shiny dots seem more precious. They're already water. How much more precious can you get? Water makes all life on earth possible. The ultimate giver of life.

His gaze shifts downward to the flat, glassy surface of the candy-blue pool. Water is a powerful taker of life too. 

He swallows. His tongue is thick and dry and his throat hurts. The nightmares don't usually make him scream - Gerard is the one that wakes up screaming - but sometimes they do. He doesn't even remember it. It feels like something tried to strangle him. Maybe that's actually what it was. He doesn't remember screaming at all. He doesn't remember walking out here, as a matter of fact. He's not sure what he _does_ remember any more. He maybe remembers a time when he didn't want to die.

Or maybe not. It was such a long time ago.

His eyes are stinging. He is so tired. He rubs them with one hand, lethargically, the other is wrapped white-knuckled around the railing. The iron is very cold. He runs his fingers through his hair and back down his face. His fingertips smell like hair oil and eyeliner.

So _tired_.

Something dense has settled inside his skull, pulsating slowly, pressing hard on his temple. He breathes in time with the ebb and swell of the pain. Something else is curled up in his core, squirming, sharp and vicious. He wonders how long it's been since he's eaten. Probably almost twenty-four hours now, if he remembers correctly. He doesn't know which of the things he remembers are correct and which are not.

The railing rises towards his face.

"Mikeyyy!" He has a fraction of a second of warning before he is hit in the back with one Pete Wentz.

"Dude," he protests, weakly. Pete's arms are wrapped around his neck and his legs around his waist, so he's effectively wearing Pete as a backpack. A warm, wriggly backpack that grinds on his spine and laughs into his hair.

Pete jumps off and pushes him onto a couch. He flops down beside Mikey, scoots right up next to him and throws an arm around his shoulders. Mikey looks down at the tattooed skin and smiles.

"I got a smile out of you already," Pete crows. "I didn't even do anything yet. How've you been, sweet little dude?"

Mikey thinks about how he could answer that. _I'm trapped in a fucking haunted mansion, I've been having terrible nightmares and I can't sleep, I constantly want to kill myself. My brother's falling apart and neither of us thought we'd live even this long but here we are and now something's got to give._

"Not great," he says. The grin drops off of Pete's face and he looks at Mikey.

"Oh," he says. He pulls Mikey against him, almost into his lap. Mikey closes his eyes. Pete smells like car air freshener and coffee. "How's the album going then?"

"Great," Mikey says into his neck. "Going to be fucking unbelievable. A masterpiece." _If we live long enough._

Pete ruffles Mikey's hair. "What's the swanky mansion you're at like? Is it haunted? Is it cool? Have you gone ghost-hunting?"

Mikey shakes his head, as well as he can with Pete's hand in his hair. "No," he mumbles. "I don't like it. It's not cool, it's..." _The five of us are dying._

And Pete, Pete gets it. "Oh," he says again. Mikey lifts his head and Pete's eyes have gone dark and serious, laugh lines melting and morphing into worry lines. "Is it bad?" Pete says quietly. 'It' doesn't mean the mansion any more.

"Yeah," Mikey says. "Gerard too. Not like before. But..." he sniffs, and realizes he is going to cry. "...nightmares. I can't sleep...he can't sleep...and I keeping thinking about things...or I'm not thinking about them but they're there in my mind anyway and I almost - I think I'm - I'm can't live like this." He is crying now, and talks faster. "There's so much stuff in my brain that it won't fit and it's like a constant headache and it's bulging and pressing and my head is going to explode and I just want to blow it open myself before that happens."

Pete squeezes Mikey even tighter. There are knees and buttons and awkward angles, but they fit together like puzzle pieces. Like two puzzle pieces that look like they should fit, but don't quite, unless you force them, and then they lock together warped and lumpy and fraying but they are locked together and good luck unlocking them.

"Been there, done that," Pete says, rubbing Mikey's back. He starts to say something else, but doesn't. There's really nothing else to say.

Mikey looks up after a minute, or maybe an hour, or two. Pete is still looking at him sadly. They are locked together on top of a hotel bed, and the sun coming through the windows is too bright and it hurts his eyes. He blinks rapidly.

"What happened to your dumb glasses?" Pete asks.

"I had laser surgery." _Too bad they can't do that for brains._

Pete rolls on top of him, cradles Mikey's head in both hands, and kisses him. Mikey closes his eyes and kisses back. His back is pressed to the bed, and Pete is on top of him, and the ugly shadowy thing that has been following him for months gets the hint it is the third wheel and goes away. The room is dark now. He can feel Pete's heart beating out of sync with his. The same bassline played on two different songs. Pete strokes his cooling temples.

Mikey relaxes. It has been a long time since he did last.

"I can't get rid of the things," Pete whispers. "But I can let off the pressure a bit. I'm not, like, aspirin, maybe just a cold wet washcloth."

There's something weird in Mikey's mouth. He thinks it's laughter.

He wakes up with rain on his face. The blinding sun from early morning is gone behind clouds, and the pool down below is rippling and pocked with drops. One hand is still clenched around the railing. He lifts his head, and winces. There is probably a railing-shaped mark on his face. His neck is stiff. His skull hurts, but is not about to rupture. _Cold wet washcloth._ His greasy hair is wet with rain _._

The worst mornings are not the darkest. Everything is dim and gentle now, under the clouds. The spiderweb is still there, no longer sagging under the weight of dew drops. He pulls himself to his feet.


End file.
